Carrington became an apostle and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve on July 3, 1870. He was the president of the European Mission four times—once prior to becoming an apostle (1868–70) and three times as an apostle (1871–73, 1875–77, 1880–82).[3] Carrington was the tenth official Church Historian of the LDS Church between 1871 and 1874. From 1873 until 1877, he was a counselor to Young in the First Presidency and served as Young's personal secretary for more than 20 years.[3]

Carrington was excommunicated from the LDS Church by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on November 7, 1885, for adultery, fornication, and "lewd and lascivious conduct".[2] Carrington's extramarital relationships had begun in England while he was the mission president; he had hid these relationships from the leaders of the church for over 10 years and had lied to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles about them when rumors about Carrington began spreading.[2] (The Salt Lake Tribune first accused Carrington of adultery in 1875.)[4] In 1885, Carrington argued before the Twelve that because he did not ejaculate inside the women he had sexual relations with, he had technically not committed adultery, but had simply committed "a little folly in Israel".[2] The Quorum disagreed and excommunicated him.

On his deathbed, Carrington received permission to be ordained an elder so that he could be buried in his temple robes.[2] He died before the ordination could take place; Wilford Woodruff, the president of the church, authorized that he be ordained 15 minutes after his death.[2] Carrington died at Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, at age 76, and was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.

^Carrington's excommunication, the death of John Taylor and the reorganization of the First Presidency, and the death of Erastus Snow created three vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve which were filled by the ordination of three new apostles.

^ abIn 1837 the callings of Church Historian and Church Recorder were separated, but in 1842 these callings were again merged.

^Starting in 1978, the duties of Church Historians fell to the Executive director of the historical department.

^While Larsen was still technically Church Historian until 1997, others succeeded him as Executive Director of the Historical Department, and those men were sometimes referred to as the Official Church Historians.

^In 2005 the callings of Church Historian and Church Recorder was restored.